City of Bones REVIEW

Everybody and their mother has read this book at this point, and technically I’ve read it in the past, but I don’t really remember much about my time reading it, especially with the TV show and that movie that everyone hates. I have all of Cassandra Clare’s shadowhunter books, and so one of my reading goals for 2019 was to read all of them. I’m off to a good start!

A lot of what I thought I remembered from this book were actually scenes from the TV show, so rereading this really made me think about what I thought I knew about this series. Since this book came out a while ago, it had so many tropes and was really cliché but honestly was perfect for the time it was written, as YA from the early to mid 2000s was pretty much all like that.

I enjoyed the characters a lot more than I thought I would, especially Jace because he was so different than what I remembered. His comebacks were brilliant and he wasn’t as doom and gloom as I thought he would be, but again, the majority of my opinions come from the show. I much prefer book Jace to show Jace. Clary was…..a lot more annoying in the books to be quite honest. She seemed so young and innocent and came across as a lot younger than the rest of the characters. Like, she felt closer to 12 than 16. She also fell into the “not like other girls” trope, which is one that I’m not the biggest fan of. Simon just felt like deadweight and most of the book was just saving him and then Clary using him to get what she needed. She really isn’t the best of friends to him, in my opinion.

I did enjoy the supernatural element and how seamlessly it was woven with the modern world. I don’t think there is much to say about the world building however, because it is just the modern world with supernatural creatures thrown in. Maybe this is because I’m used to high fantasies with tons of world building, or maybe it’s because I haven’t picked up a paranormal book in such a long time.

A lot of this book just felt like filler space and some of it didn’t really seem necessary, but based on what I’ve heard, Cassandra’s writing gets much better as the series progresses, so I’m not too upset about it.

That being said, I can’t wait to continue and see how this series grows and changes!